


You Can Do Anything

by Ghostinthehouse



Series: Demon and Angel Professors [106]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Professors, Nonbinary Warlock Dowling, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-21
Updated: 2020-07-21
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:28:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25429189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ghostinthehouse/pseuds/Ghostinthehouse
Summary: Adam was standing by the window when Warlock got home from work, staring out at something unseenOne shot
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley & Warlock Dowling, Warlock Dowling/Adam Young
Series: Demon and Angel Professors [106]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1412962
Comments: 38
Kudos: 933





	You Can Do Anything

Adam was standing by the window when Warlock got home from work, staring out at something unseen, his usually cheerful face drawn tight and tired. He said, hardly looking round, "People tell you that you can do anything you want to, be anything you want to be, and it's meant to be empowering. It's meant to encourage you to dream big, to push through and reach out, and..." He took a sharp, deep, breath. "Sometimes you need the people closest to you to shake you out of that 'anything' dream and honestly consider what you really want. Because sometimes the thing you really want is something that the 'empowering' people want you to discard as too small. If 'anything' actually means 'anything' rather than 'anything that I consider acceptable' then it has to include the little things as equally valid and valuable. It has to hold space for 'I want to play games with my friends' and 'I want to hug my Dog' and 'I love my dad and want to stay with him' and 'I want to learn new things and talk about them with people'."

"Well," Warlock told him softly, leaning against the wall beside Adam, "what I want to do is hold you, now that I can. Now that you're here. May I?"

"Please." Adam lifted his arm high enough for Warlock to duck into it.

Warlock obliged, wrapping an arm around Adam's back in turn.

Adam leaned into it. "Meeting them again... your godparents, I mean... it brings back old memories."

"Bad ones?"

"It wasn't the nicest of days. And it wasn't their fault, not at all. I wanted..." He trailed off, staring at nothing again. At last, he sighed. "I wanted to make the world perfect, to fix everything wrong with it. Tear it down and start again. Do a better job of things than even God, who, after all, barely made it a week before it all went wrong. I wanted so much, and I was being told I could do anything. Everything. Only..." He grimaced.

Warlock nodded. "World doesn't work that way. Not really."

"Yeah. And then I found out that the adults involved weren't interested in what I actually wanted, only in how I could be used to get what _they_ wanted. That's about when those two turned up."

"Typical timing," Warlock muttered.

"Perhaps. But them being there - it meant I wasn't alone anymore. It meant I had adults on my side too." Adam turned away from the window. "If they even told me their names back then, I didn't remember them, only the feel of their hands holding mine. I was - just a kid. By the time I thought to thank them, they'd gone."

"Yeah. They're there for a lot of kids," Warlock agreed, remembering the feel of Crowley's hand pushing them into the safety of the greenhouse. "And Crowley, particularly, hates being thanked, so they rarely stick around for that."

"Yeah, I ran into that already. Got my head bitten off for it."

Warlock drew Adam closer, wrapping both of their arms around him. "There's a trick to work around it. Don't say 'thanks', say you 'appreciate it'. He'll accept that."

"Do you think they even remember?" Adam asked softly, burying his face in Warlock's shoulder as the echo of old nightmares shuddered though him. "It was just one day, years ago. It meant everything to me, but-"

Warlock tentatively carded their fingers through his hair. "I don't think there's much they forget," they murmured back, thinking of the look Crowley wore sometimes when he thought he was alone, as if he was staring at something a thousand years ago and a thousand miles away. "Apart from, you know, what time it is, what have they got in their pockets, and where did they leave...?"

Adam's chuckle was a thin, wan, thing, but it was there, which was more than could be said earlier. "Maybe someday I'll be brave enough to ask them. Hope they do."


End file.
